Engineer `saw green signals'

Union official says train didn't get track-switch sign

September 21, 2005|By Virginia Groark, Tribune staff reporter

The engineer operating the Rock Island District Line train that derailed Saturday, killing two people, has said he was signaled to proceed straight on the tracks, not switch from one to another, a top union official said Tuesday.

"He said he saw green signals," said Rick Radek, vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, who said he has talked briefly to the engineer.

The 41-year-old engineer has not been available for comment, and National Transportation Safety Board investigators who interviewed the man for three hours Sunday will not disclose what he said until they talk to other crew members. Those individuals are expected to be interviewed later this week, an NTSB spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Investigators have said the train was traveling through a crossover just south of 47th Street at 69 m.p.h., nearly seven times the 10 m.p.h. speed limit. NTSB officials have also said that the track was switched nearly an hour before the accident and the signals appeared to be working properly.

But NTSB Acting Chairman Mark Rosenker also cautioned that the investigation is continuing and the cause could be something other than human error.

If everything was working properly, the engineer should have been able to see a signal warning him of the upcoming track switch a mile in advance of the signal, Metra spokeswoman Judy Pardonnet said. Located six-tenths of a mile ahead of the crossover, the signal would have been the first one to indicate by different colored lights that the engineer was supposed to switch tracks just south of 47th Street, officials said.

While more injured passengers filed lawsuits Tuesday, federal investigators spent the morning reconstructing the accident and analyzing what the engineer might have seen in the seconds leading up to the derailment that also injured scores of people, including a pregnant woman who remained in critical condition Tuesday.

"What they really are trying to do here is do their best to see what the engineer would have been seeing as he drove the train on Saturday morning," NTSB spokeswoman Lauren Peduzzi said. "That's why it's important to do it at the same time of day and in roughly the same weather conditions."

The results from the test run were not immediately available, Peduzzi said.

Meanwhile, Radek said he's perplexed by the accident.

"You're looking at an engineer who is very competent and had a very good work history," said Radek, a former engineer on what is now Metra's Union Pacific West Line. "These people don't just ignore what's going on."

Though the engineer had been working on the line for 45 days after undergoing a Metra training program, he had more than 5 years' experience operating freight trains for CSX. NTSB officials have asked for the engineer's work history records.

Saturday's derailment occurred around 8:35 a.m. near 47th Street. The train, which had departed Joliet at 7:24 p.m., stopped 2 miles south of the accident site because of maintenance work in the area. After receiving permission to move forward, the engineer proceeded north, NTSB officials said.

Just south of 47th Street, the engineer was supposed to switch from one track to another through the crossover. Instead, the train moved through the switch at 69 m.p.h., investigators found. The speed limit for trains that do not cross tracks there is 70 m.p.h.

Unlike three other routes on Metra's system, the Rock Island line does not have a mechanism that stops trains if an engineer does not respond to a signal. Metra officials say it would cost about $1.6 billion to install the safety mechanisms on its eight other lines, including the Rock Island.

The commuter railroad used to have a cheaper control method.

Prior to 1985, a fireman used to ride in the locomotive cab along with the engineer, Radek said. Initially the person was there to fire the steam engines and later to deal with mechanical issues. But as technology improved, most of the firemen's functions disappeared and they became engineers in training, providing an extra set of eyes for the engineer, Radek said.

Under the rules, everybody in the locomotive had to call out each signal to each other, he added.

The position of fireman was phased out after 1985 through an agreement between the national railroad carriers and the United Transportation Union, Radek said. Metra abided by that agreement, he added.